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The Internet

Submission + - AT&T willing to do MPAA, RIAA's dirty work (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Peerless
Peerless writes: AT&T plans to begin monitoring its network for pirated content. An AT&T VP says that his company's decision to offer IPTV made them realize that their interests are a lot more closely aligned with those of Hollywood than they used to be, but it's going to be tough to pull this off. 'The company says it will target only repeat offenders and that it will not violate user privacy or FCC directives on network openness. Who knows how this is all supposed to work, especially as legal, unencrypted files flow across the Internet from sites like iTunes and eMusic, along with thousands of smaller sites that serve as promotional vehicles for independent bands and filmmakers? We suspect that AT&T will start small, deploying some sort of P2P solution that looks for the transfer of unencrypted Hollywood blockbusters and major-label bands in complete form.' Ars points out that even if the solution is 99.5% effective, that's still going to result in a huge number of false positives. First the NSA, and now the MPAA and RIAA. Is there anyone AT&T won't spy for?
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Municipal Fiber Gets Final Approval (theadvertiser.com)

Submitted by
Teh Treag
Teh Treag writes: "After over three years of court battles with BellSouth, and Cox Communications over providing fiber to residential customers for broadband, telephone, and television, the final hurdles were crossed. The city of Lafayette, LA. expects the fiber to increase competition, drive down broadband prices, and attract technology business development. Expect the battle over funding the $125 million project to continue.
From the Daily Advertiser
"Certainly this is a day we've all been waiting for," said LUS Director Terry Huval...
John St. Julien has been maintaining a blog following this story from the beginning."
Spam

Submission + - FBI announces results of BotNet investigation

Submitted by E_Block
E_Block writes: The FBI and DOJ have announced (http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel07/botnet0613 07.htm) the results of "OPERATION BOT ROAST", which has identified over 1 million victims of "bot hearders".
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - FDA considering diluting chocolate

Submitted by shewfig
shewfig writes: The FDA is considering a redefinition of "chocolate" to allow substitution of vegetable oil ($0.70/lb) instead of cocoa butter ($2.30/lb) and whey protein instead of dry whole milk. There are already standard terms to differentiate these products from chocolate, such as "chocolatey" and "chocolate-flavored". The change, requested by industry group the Chocolate Manufacturers of America (CMA) http://www.chocolateusa.org/About-Us/ , will allow inferior products to masquerade as the real thing. Leading the resistance is high-end chocolate maker Guittard, from their website http://dontmesswithourchocolate.guittard.com/ with significant grass-roots support from the "Candyblog" — http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/

Deadline for consumer comments is April 25, so action is needed now.

FDA website on proposed change, oddly enough missing the exact proposed changes: http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/07p0085/0 7p-0085.htm
The Internet

Submission + - Hong Knog to Offer Free Internet

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "The Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region says that they will allocate HK$200 million in the next two years to provide free Internet service at government-run establishments and sites like public libraries, parks and government office buildings."
Story avaiable at
http://www.chinatechnews.com/2007/04/10/5233-hong- kong-to-offer-free-internet-service/#more-5233
Businesses

Submission + - Peers at work?

Submitted by LoudMusic
LoudMusic writes: I work for an advertising agency of sixty-plus employees as the systems administrator. Eight years ago there were two of us but we successfully eliminated the need for a second administrator. I've now been doing my job essentially by myself for over six years. My boss is the CFO and a geek in his own right, but he's both busy with his own work and not adept enough in support and technology to truly be a peer. We are friends, but he's nearly old enough to be my father, so we have a little bit of generation gap. As for the rest of my coworkers, they're all sales people and artists and we have very little in common. So at work I have just a handful of people I would consider friends, and none of them capable or willing to help me with my work. Nearly all my geek friends have migrated to the regional technology corporations, one in particular, and spend all day working together on common projects — motivating, educating, and supporting each other in their careers. I've intentionally avoided moving to a corporate field because I enjoy working for a small business and I hear too much negative feedback about "corporate life". But maybe it's time to bite the bullet and be with my friends. Who has experienced both areas and which do you prefer? Why?
The Media

Submission + - Update: Colorado woman claims hackers killed site

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Colorado Woman's site taken down... claimed "stolen by hackers"

Colorado Woman Suzanne Shell runs "profane-justice". The site was slashdoted between March 19th 2007, and March 31st, 2007. Information Week reported a legal dispute between Susan Shell and Archive.org, where in spite of a lack of a robots.txt file, it was her belief that her rights were violated by archive crawlers.

The site was shutdown due to exceeding the monthly bandwidth allotment late March 19th, 2007 according EarthLink's error message. It's now Suzanne's contention that "On or about March 18-20, 2007,""this site was maliciously hacked""and sent out all over the world as hot-linked spam pop-ups or some""other similar abusive theft of""bandwidth and content." {quoted from here} and is claiming more than $276,050.00 in damages based on $.01/page and $.02/MB in stolen revenue. Her site claims over 36 million page loads since March 17, 2007.

Is this a case of an online vigilante took it upon themselves to hack the site and spam the world in a period of two days, or is this a case where getting publicity created an interest in her site and it was this interest that exceded her bandwidth allocation? Is it reasonable to claim $276,050.00 for 11 days of down time, or should Suzanne Shell have contacted her ISP and increase her monthly bandwidth allocation? Were hackers/unsolicited pop-ups/spam involved?

It's asked by Suzanne Shell that anyone who received the url to her site by "virtue of unsolicited pop-up, spam, email or any other mechanism" to contact the "FBI Computer Crime center (www.ic3.gov)" case I0703201751051092.
Communications

Submission + - US Gov't Secret Fiber Needs - "Mind-Blowing

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In an article about the Joseph Nacchio, former Qwest CEO, stock fraud case, an interesting bit of information came out: Nacchio's defense is that, as a member of a "government telecommunications panel" he had access to classified information on the government's telecommunication capacity needs: "A defense lawyer, Herbert J. Stern, described the government's capacity need as 'mind-blowing, mind-boggling'", which is "why Qwest was buying assets abroad." Sure, that's is his defense attorney talking and not a neutral analyst, but let's say it's true: What would the U.S. government transmit over this "mind-blowing" fiber capacity? And what would they need to send (or receive from) other countries?
The Internet

Submission + - Get arrested for using free wifi at the library

Submitted by
edmicman
edmicman writes: "Tech news outlets are reporting a story from Alaska where a man's laptop was confiscated after he was caught playing online games using the library's free WiFi connection:

Brian Tanner was sitting in his Acura Integra recently outside the Palmer Library playing online games when a Palmer police pulled up behind him. The officer asked him what he was doing. Tanner, 21, was using the library's wireless Internet connection. He was told that his activity constituted theft of services and was told to leave. The next day, Sunday, police spotted him there again.
"
OS X

Submission + - 3 Different Ways To Run Windows Applications on yo

Submitted by
luna6
luna6 writes: "http://lunapark6.com/?p=3079 Article compares three different ways to run Windows Applcations on Intel Macs: Codeweaver's Crossover for Mac, Parallels for Mac and Apple Boot Camp. In the article the advantages and disadvantages are discussed for each method and a final conclusion is given for which method is best suited for a particular user's needs. Plenty of screenshots are provided to give a reader a better idea of what each program does."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - In-Depth Dell XPS 710 H2C Edition Evaluation

Submitted by RL20-II
RL20-II writes: Dell's XPS 710 H2C Edition is touted as a top-of-the-line, ultra-performance machine built with power users in mind. Not only does the XPS 710 H2C hold the distinction of being Dell's first non-limited edition factory overclocked computer, but it also uses Dell's first in-house developed liquid cooling system to keep its quad-core power plant cool. This in-depth evaluation at HotHardware has plenty of performance data and goes into great detail on the technologies employed in the XPS 710 H2C Edition. This seems like a killer system if you can justify the investment.
Security

Submission + - Password Malpractice: Are You Guilty?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The explosion of passwords in today's enterprise has created a sea of holes in the security infrastructure. Some CIOs have responded to the challenge by bringing in the lifeboats, figuratively speaking, but in many cases the password-related security risk remains largely unchecked and even ignored.

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